I suspect Angela Merkel is correct

"Cheap money" is the source of our economic problems, according to Angela Merkel.

"Excessively cheap money in the US was a driver of today's crisis," the chancellor told the German parliament. "I am deeply concerned about whether we are now reinforcing this trend through measures being adopted in the US and elsewhere and whether we could find ourselves in five years facing the exact same crisis."

It does seem to me that there is a strong resistance in America to admitting that you can't go on spending more than you earn. You can't go on buying things on credit.